George King reports this morning that the Rangers had esteemed scout Don Welke watching Joba Chamberlain pitch for the Yankees yesterday. It’s not yet clear how seriously the Yankees are about wanting to trade the starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter-turned-reliever-who-still-thinks-he-can-start.
In any case, George’s tidbit raises an interesting point: It’s very rare for the Yankees to trade a major-league asset once they open camp (as opposed to during the offseason). When you have the championship aspirations the Yankees do every year, it’s fundamentally risky to give away depth at the major-league level, even if it’s to improve another department or the same department in the big leagues.
In the Derek Jeter era (let’s make that mean 1996 to the present, even though Jeter enjoyed a big-league cameo in 1995), I can recall only a handful transactions from mid-February through August in which they dealt important big-league pieces.
1) Matt Drews and Ruben Sierra to Detroit for Cecil Fielder, 1996. Big success, although you could question whether Sierra even qualified as “important” by the time the Yankees traded him.
2) Homer Bush, Graeme Lloyd and David Wells to Toronto for Roger Clemens, 1999. That worked out as well as the Yankees could have hoped, except for the post-retirement part in which they refuse to acknowledge Clemens’ existence.
3) Raul Mondesi to Arizona for David Dellucci, 2003. This was a personality deal, with Mondesi having worn out his welcome. Dellucci was OK.
4) Jose Contreras to the White Sox for Esteban Loaiza, 2004. This one really bit the Yankees down the line, although you wonder whether Contreras ever would’ve righted himself in New York.
5) Kyle Farnsworth to Detroit for Ivan Rodriguez, 2008. As the kids say, “Fail.”
There’s something to be said for trading Chamberlain, given the proper return. He’s injury-prone and annoying to be around, and a well-run scouting department can find good relievers. But when you’re vulnerable in one department, as the Yankees currently very much are with their offense, then you want to make sure your strengths are very strong. Chamberlain, for all his flaws, helps makes the Yankees’ bullpen a plus.
—The Miami New Times’ decision – to not hand over its Biogenesis records to Major League Baseball – is good news for those of us who believe in an independent press and bad news for those of us who think that athletes using steroids is the worst thing to happen in the history of the planet, ever.
The New Times reported that the Florida Department of Health is investigating Biogenesis owner Anthony Bosch, so maybe that’ll help MLB. It’s iffy, though.
So this is a blow for MLB, but they figured this was a long shot once the news of their meeting with the New Times became public, therefore causing many people in the journalism community to ask New Times editor Chuck Strouse, essentially, “Are you out of your mind.”
The real loser here, though, is Strouse and the New Times. If you read Strouse’s linked explanation for holding onto the Biogenesis evidence, you’ll see that he comes off as a serious lightweight who is as interested in emotions as he is in facts. His personal biases cloud the already shaky foundation of the Biogenesis allegations.
–Have a great day.